OnePlus Nord review: Bang for the buck

OnePlus has been coming up with smartphones that have given the other brands a serious run for their money. The company’s flagship products are good buys, but there might be quite a few people out there who do not want to spend something in the excess of 40,000 Rupees.

Enter the Nord. This affordable midrange offering – beginning at Rs 24,999 – might just be for those who want to own a OnePlus phone but do not want to spend a lot of money.

Though the Nord is a midrange product, no build quality has been taken away from what we are used to seeing on the more expensive OnePlus devices. The set is compact and feels nice to hold with the thickness at 8.2 mm and comfortable weight of 184 grams. It is available in Gray Onyx and Blue Marble colours.

The Blue Marble we reviewed looks very classy but like the 8 Pro or the 7T Pro, the Gorilla Glass 5 back feels a slippery but to a far lesser extent than the two premium sets. In any case, the supplied protective case is recommended. The button/ port/ SIM tray/ speaker layout on the Nord’s plastic frame is not very different from the other sets.

The Nord has a 6.44-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 2400x1080 pixels, thus giving a density of 408ppi. The refresh rate can be set to 60 or 90 Hz and the higher setting will be great for applications like gaming. The display is nice, again giving no indication that corners have been cut when it comes to quality.

Now, there is a significant change in what the front looks like. We are normally used to seeing just one selfie lens, but there are two on the Nord. The main one is 32 MP, f/2.45 with the Sony IMX616 sensor and with electronic image stabilisation. The other one is an 8 MP, f/2.45 ultrawide lens with a 105-degree field of view. The front camera is capable of shooting 4K video at 30/ 60 fps and 1080p video at 30/ 60 fps.

The Nord has a quad-camera setup with the main shooter being 48 MP, f/1.75 with a Sony IMX586 sensor (same as in the 8 Series) with image stabilisation included. The rear camera setup also has an 8 MP, f/2.25 ultrawide angle (119 degrees field of view), a 5 MP, f/2.4 depth and a 2 MP, f/2.4 macro lens. A dual LED flash has been included. Videos can be shot in 1080p at 30/ 60 fps, 4k at 30 fps, super slow motion in 1080p at 240 fps and time lapse in 1080p at 30 fps, 4k at 30 fps.

The quality of the camera setup is there for all to see, obviously with the main lens producing the best pictures. The colours turned out to be rich and the bokeh is nice.

The Nord is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G (7 nm) chipset and is 5G compatible. The GPU is Adreno 620. RAM options are 6GB/ 8GB/ 12GB LPDDR4X and storage options are 64GB/ 128GB/ 256GB UFS2.1. The OxygenOS is based on Android 10 and it is easy to use and without any of the clutter. Daily tasks are not a problem at all and the experience while playing Asphalt 9 was good. However, for those with heavy usage requirements, the 8 Series will be more suited with the flagship 865 processor in it.

There is a 4115 mAh battery and the set comes with a Warp Charge 30T fast charger. Charging is quite quick and the battery will easily last the day if phone usage is not heavy.

The Nord is quite a capable device. It is a bang-for-the-buck handset and should suffice for most users. But the demanding user will have to take a step up to the 8 Series.

The base model (6 GB RAM + 64 GB ROM) is only for India and is priced at Rs 24,999. The 8+128 version will cost Rs 27,999 and the 12+256 has been priced at Rs 29,999.